The Dream Diary
by Nicole Garland
Summary: This is basically just a whole bunch of dreams that I had that freaked me out enough to publish. I end up locked i the TARDIS. Yeah, I'm not kidding.


Sleep was all elusive that night. That 2,000 year long night. I was incredibly tired, and the struggle for sleep only exhausted me more, and yet I was not permitted the peaceful prize of slumber. When the small blue glow of my alarm clock told me it was just past midnight, I finally gave up my fight for sleep, pulled on my coat and shoes, and slipped out of the house. Soon I was on the familiar path I take on nights like this, when my mind was too busy for sleep.

That was when I noticed a blue box. I knew exactly what that box had to be, and so I ran to it and knocked. The door opened and there, in all his glory, was The Doctor.

"Oh, it's about time, I thought you'd never wake up!" he said.

Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me in to the TARDIS.

Even though I knew what I was going to see in the TARDIS console room, I was struck by the grandeur of it all. It was real, I was actually there.

I wandered around for a while and saw parts of the TARDIS I never saw on the show. I saw a kitchen, and the pool, the library (which was my favorite), of course the wardrobe where you see when Ten chooses his signature clothes. And then I found what I guess would be his bedroom.

It had two twin beds on opposite sides of the room. One was obviously his, unmade, blankets all in a ball, Gallifreyan writing all along to walls. The other bunk was bare and the bed was made. I don't know how, but somehow I knew it was Rose's before she got trapped in the other dimension.

And that no one had used it since.

Then The Doctor came in and said "What are you doing in here? No one but me has been in here since-"

I cut him off, "Since Rose?"

He looked at me for a minute, in shock and then lunged at me and pinned me to the wall.

"How do you know about her? She doesn't exist in this universe anymore; any trace of her existence has been wiped. HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HER?"

"I'm not allowed to tell you, trust me, you don't want to know." I replied.

He threw me down on his bed, straddled me, and touched my temples, forcing his way into my mind. He read my memories and I saw things I was too young to remember, but I somehow knew were real. Then he got to this year and saw me watching him in the show and then he broke the connection.

He slapped me hard across the face, and started yelling at me again, "WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR? HOW HAVE YOU BEEN SEEING ME? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE; YOU CAN'T SEND A VIDEO FEED THROUGH TIME-SPACE! HOW CAN YOU FOLLOW ME?"

At this I started to cry. I hadn't expected meeting the man I had always hoped was real to go this way. This didn't seem like the chivalrous Time Lord I had come to know. My tears seemed to take the anger from him; he sighed, got off of me, sat down next to me and brushed my hair out of my face.

"I'm sorry," he said, "It's just a sensitive subject."

"Yeah," I said, "I can tell. After all this time, you still haven't gotten over her? It's been so long."

"I don't think I'll ever get over her. She was ... different than the others."

"I know. I didn't stop crying for hours when I saw her get stuck there. It's hard to cope with for me, I can't imagine how it must be for you," after thinking a moment I added, "And, there's no way I can replace her or bring her back, but I can be a shoulder to cry on, if you want."

And he just looked at me for a moment, and then broke down and started crying in my arms. It was really weird, having a 1000-year-old time lord in my arms, crying; especially one who had just struck me a few moments ago, but somehow, it felt OK. I think it was nice for him not to have to be the strong one for once.

...

I was traveling with the doctor. It was the same sort of stuff he would do with Rose , except I wasn't taking her place, I was different. We saw new planets, had adventures, he rescued me from execution at the London Tower in 1804. It was the perfect traveling I had always imagined having with The Doctor. Of course, as soon as the thought occurred to me I knew the beginning of the end had arrived. For once the thought had arrived in my mind, the universe was bound to throw something at me to mess it all up. I decided to forget it. It would happen if I wanted it to or not, all I could do was make the best of it while it lasted.

Then one day, we got done beating some villain and he turned around and said, "We did it, Rose, we did it again!"

"Doctor?" I said. I knew the time had come. This would be our last adventure. From now on, everything would be different.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot for a minute. Things were so much like old times that I guess I just thought…" he looked troubled, but then his face cleared and he said, "never mind."

He smiled and started to walk toward the TARDIS again, but something was different, I could tell.

We walked aboard and into the room I saw when I first went on the TARDIS, the bedroom. I sat down on my bunk, which had been put in next to Rose's, I had refused to take hers and the doctor refused to let me have my own room. That was probably a good thing though. That way I was able to help him if he got into one of his moods. I looked up and the Doctor came in, smiling at me warmly. He bent down and kissed my forehead.

"You were right," he said, "I don't have to replace her to be happy again. You're not like Rose, you're different. I still feel the hole in my heart where she was, you aren't patching the hole, you're just providing new infrastructure for a heart with a whole bunch of chunks missing out of it. But I'm not going to lose you like I did Rose. I'm not going to lose you at all."

Then he pressed a button on a remote he was holding and a sound like a huge electrical current being connected came from the control room. I ran out into the main control room and found some sort of energy field had closed over the door. I tried to touch it, but it threw my hand back.

"It's programmed to only let me or someone I give permission to in or out of the TARDIS. You are safe inside; no one will ever hurt you."

"So why didn't it let me out? Have you forgotten to tell it I'm allowed?" The thought had never occurred to me that he wasn't going to let me out.

"I'm not going to tell it you're allowed." He responded simply.

"But, that means that I can't ever leave the TARDIS." I said. I was utterly confused.

"That's right. And you'll never age. But when I die, the TARDIS will take you back where you were before I found you, you'll wake up and this will all be some crazy dream. It's too risky letting you out. I can't bear to lose you, the infrastructure of my heart. It'll collapse if I lose you. I'll be with you often, I'll answer distress calls and all, but you will be safe in the TARDIS."

And then the TARDIS started, stopped, and the door opened, then closed, and I was alone. It felt like I sat there forever, and when The Doctor came in, I tried to make the best of it, but I was trapped in the TARDIS for so long.

When The Doctor was gone, I would cry to myself. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. This wasn't The Doctor I knew from the show those many years ago. This Doctor couldn't suffer any more heartbreak, and would do the wrong thing to make sure it didn't happen again.

Funnily enough, I think the TARDIS tried to help me out when I was feeling bad. She'd guide me to the library, or the pool, wherever she thought I should go to make me feel better. We came to an understanding, her and me.

I sat through so many regenerations. I was always the one to help him with the sickness that came afterwards. He had other companions while I was there. I always stayed away from them, they never found out about me. I didn't want them to, and so the TARDIS helped make sure none of them ever knew I existed. All I wanted to be was with the Doctor. I was there for him whenever he needed me, when his latest companion left, when he needed someone to cry to, I was there.

I kept track, I was in the TARDIS for 2,000 years. And just like that famous centurion, I stayed out of love. I allowed myself to be held captive in that ship for so long because I loved The Doctor more than I cared about my own well being.

Then, one day, the TARDIS landed on Trenzelore again, for the last time. I ran up to the Doctor just as he was about to leave the TARDIS, and hugged him tight. This would be one of the last times I would get to do so, and I wanted to make it last. He put his chin on top of my head and hugged me tight. I tried very hard to remember his embrace. The comfort and safety that came with being in his arms was something that I would never forget.

As soon as he was gone, I broke down and cried. I would miss this. Yes, I would miss being a captive on that ship; it was the best time of my life. I was utterly miserable, but at least I had _lived_. An ordinary life now, after all I'd seen and done, wasn't living. Not really. I wandered the halls of the TARDIS for the last time, hoping she had one last wonder to show me. One last room I hadn't seen. And she did. The room I found myself in was unlike any other in the TARDIS. The walls were like a movie screen, pictures and videos floating across them, staying just long enough for me to see them before they were gone again. I saw myself the first day I met The Doctor, so young, so naïve. 2000 years later, I looked exactly the same, but I was such a different girl that I was then. I must have stood for hours, watching The Doctor and I dance across the walls. Slowly, the walls began to go dark. When there was nothing left but white walls, I asked the TARDIS if it would record me and play it for anyone who found her after The Doctor and I were gone. A camera popped out of the wall and a red light showed that I was being recorded.

"Hello there, and welcome to the TARDIS. This ship is so much more than a machine as you will soon find out if you haven't already. This TARDIS is alive, well, I hope. And it used to be the home to one of the most amazing men who even lived.

"He was a Time Lord called The Doctor, and he was the last of his kind. He has seen enough triumph fill a lifetime, and enough pain and sorrow for two. He smiles and he laughs because if he doesn't, he cries. He is always running foreword because if he looks back, the weight of everything he's done will kill him. Actually, I think it's about to. You see, as I'm recording this, The Doctor is dying. Don't worry, it's time. For both of us. Let this be The Doctor's eulogy. Remember him, remember us."

Just as I finish, I hear the door bang open, and I hear a thud on the floor of the console room. I run out of the room, and find The Doctor lying in the entryway of the TARDIS. This was it. I lay him down on his bed and made him as comfortable as I could.

He smiled at me, and said, "Oh Jennifer, my sweet girl, you've been around through everything. You've loved me through everything, even when I was impossible to love. I don't deserve to have found you. The most horrible thing I ever did was force you to stay here forever, and yet you even asked to be let go. I was an old man when I found you and now I am ancient. It is my time to go, and your time to return home. Don't forget about me. When you wake up it will all seem like a dream, but let it be one you write down, and remember for the rest of your life. Thank you...for everything."

And then he died. Just like that, the man who had saved the universe countless times was gone. My doctor was gone. My head started to droop, and my eyelids fluttered. I was falling asleep, and I would wake up in my bedroom on the same night I had left. I tried to stay awake, but my body was acting of its own volition. My head dropped onto the Doctor's chest, and the last thing I noticed before the blackness consumed me was the lack of the double heart beat I had grown so comfortable listening to. His heart beat.

...

Well, Doctor, I did it. I wrote it down as best I could. I almost wish that it were real, but I know the Doctor I met was not at all like the real one would be. But all the same, I wrote it down, according to your request. And I know I'll remember this for the rest of my life. That was the thing that struck me about this dream. It was all about remembering. So I have decided to do just that. To remember. To never let myself forget the effect The Doctor has had on me, even though he doesn't exist. And I urge you to do the same. Because he will never really die as long as we remember him. Because as long as we remember, he will be real. And you and I both know that this universe can't get along with The Doctor. Let's make sure he's always going to be around to save the day.

...

**This story is an actually dream I had and typed up, so that last part is actually how I feel. You have no idea how scared I was that the dream was real at first.**


End file.
